This report presents product suggestions for future nanotechnologies resulting from a series of co-creation activities in the GoNano project.
The GoNano project established an iterative, four-step co-creation process to integrate societal considerations in nanotechnologies, from which a wealth of creative ideas for future nanotechnologies have been produced. These 92 suggestions vary wildly in scope and nature. The co-creation process was not just intended to generate wild ideas, however. It was also meant to produce concrete ‘responsive’ design suggestions which can be fed back in ongoing research and innovation activities. This report presents five narratives from the different pilot studies that suggest how key suggestions evolved over time, maturing from an initial suggestion made in the expert interviews at the beginning of the project into a highly specific proposition towards the end. These cases suggest that focused, guided interactions between different stakeholders can in principle lead to novel suggestions on how to integrate broader considerations in research and innovation decisions.
Read the full report here GoNano D4.5 – Concrete product suggestions for future nanotechnologies
In summary
GoNano established an iterative, four-step co-creation process to integrate societal considerations in nanotechnologies: the first step consisted of a series of citizen workshops (one in each of the three pilot countries: the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Spain) where citizens expressed their wishes and concerns with respect to each of the application areas (health, food and energy, respectively). In the second step, the pilot partners organised co-creation workshops with stakeholders to explore ways to take the wishes and concerns of citizens into account in nanotechnology research and innovation. The results from this first stakeholder workshop were subsequently discussed in the third step of the co-creation process: an online citizen consultation to get responses from citizens from various European countries to the product suggestions of the first round of stakeholder workshops. The fourth and final step of the co-creation process consisted of a second round of stakeholder workshops organised in October and November 2019 in each of the pilot countries. These workshops explored how the product suggestions derived from the first workshops and subsequent input from the online consultation could be integrated in concrete research and innovation decisions.
The GoNano co-creation process has produced a wealth of creative ideas for future nanotechnologies. Some 92 product suggestions have been collected over the course of the project. These suggestions vary wildly in scope and nature. Some of these suggestions were discarded or amalgamated during the workshops themselves through brainstorming, focussing and selection procedures. The suggestions were also categorised by GoNano partners after each step in order to produce viable options for workshop participants in subsequent steps. Given the specific objectives and limited timeframes of the project, it was impossible to follow up on every single suggestion. Still, each of the 92 ideas could in principle serve as the start of a new cycle of co-creation – provided that one of the participants sees merit in the idea**
The co-creation process was not just intended to generate wild ideas, however. It was also meant to produce concrete ‘responsive’ design suggestions which can be fed back in ongoing research and innovation activities. This is why the product suggestions became more focused and directed towards concrete suggestions over the course of the events. This report presents five narratives from the different pilot studies that suggest how key suggestions evolved over time, maturing from an initial suggestion made in the expert interviews at the beginning of the project into a highly specific proposition towards the end:
1. Developing a data management plan for the artificial pancreas.
2. Strengthening user-producer interactions in the development of new diagnostic tools for cancer detection.
3. Designing a packaging system for perishable foods.
4. Defining safety measures for the use of nanomaterials in food.
5. Capturing energy from the environment and converting it to electrical energy for clean storage and use.
These cases suggest that focused, guided interactions between different stakeholders can in principle lead to novel suggestions on how to integrate broader considerations in research and innovation decisions.
The product suggestions are not the “concrete” products we ambitiously envisaged at the outset of the project; however, they are the truest reflection of the GoNano co-creation process that produced them (deliverable D4.4. will consider the extent to which the workshops succeeded in promoting changes in research and innovation decisions, and will review the preconditions for enabling concrete change through co-creation).
Read the full report here GoNano D4.5 – Concrete product suggestions for future nanotechnologies
*The document may not be seen as an official deliverable of the GoNano project as it has not yet been approved by the European Commission
** Deliverable 4.4 provides a more elaborate assessment of the engagement process as a whole. It also considers in further detail why some ideas were taken up and others were not, with the aim to shed further light on the preconditions for co-creation